"A vessel belonging to this lady stopped in Algiers several weeks ago. I brought its captain to see my master, and my master asked this captain, an old man with a strange and unpronounceable name."

"MacGuire?"

"Aye, lady!" Haroun's dark face cracked in a small smile. "My master asked this man to take a message to you, but the old man said that you were not in your homeland, but rather in this place. I was therefore dispatched to fetch you to my master. He says that you must waste no time in coming to him, for the man who is your true mate is in danger."

"Can we sail tonight?" Skye demanded of Robbie.

"Aye, but I think you're crazy, lass. Let me go to Osman, and see what it is he has to say, if indeed it is really him. Have you forgotten Jamil? God, what Jamil would not give to wreak his revenge upon you, Skye. Algiers is too dangerous for you, lass."

"No! I will go, Robbie! I must go!"

Robbie looked at Haroun. "Is Captain Jamil still alive, man?"

"He lives, sir, but at this time he is gone from the city to Istanbul to seek a cure for his illness. It will be safe for the lady. My master would not call her were it not safe."

"We sail tonight!" Skye said in a voice that brooked no argument.

Nicolas St. Adrian had stood by, looking from one to the other while they had spoken back and forth and to the dark Haroun. The quick language that they had used was not familiar to him, and he had not understood a word that they had said. He had known instinctively, however, that he was somehow about to lose Skye, and all his emotions gathered themselves to fight this. He could not, would not, let her go from him. "Tell me, doucettem" he begged her. “Tell me what this man has said, and why I feel you are about to go from me?"

She had forgotten him! She had forgotten this gentle and tender man who loved her so deeply, who intended to make her his bride in a month's time. For the last few minutes it had been as if he had not existed, for the truth was that only Niall Burke existed for her. Her hands flew to her face in distress, and her beautiful sapphire eyes, dark in their sorrow, looked into his face. "I cannot marry you," she said softly. "My husband is alive. Haroun has brought me word from an old friend in Algiers that Niall is alive. Osman would not lie to me. I must go to Algiers, Nicolas. I must find Niall."

"Do not leave me," he begged her.

"I have no choice, Nicolas," she said low. "Niall is alive. I cannot wed another while my lawful husband lives."

"Let Robert go," he said. "Let Robert go to find out if what this man says is true. Stay with me until he returns."

"Aye!" Robbie chimed in. That's what I told her too, Nicolas, but she will not listen. As always she is stubborn!"

"Niall is alive! Osman says he is in danger," she shouted at them. "I must go to him! I must, and I will. To send Robbie is to waste precious time. Wasted time could cost my Niall his life! If that happens I shall never forgive either of you. Never!"

"Go then," he shouted back at her. "Go, but if this turns out to be a fantasy, promise me that you will return to me, doucette! At least give me that hope."

"Osman would not lie to me," she said softly.

"Promise me!"

She looked into his face and saw that there were tears in his green eyes. "Oh, Nicolas, what have I done to you! You see! Did I not warn you, my darling? I destroy in one way or another the men who love me. It has ever been thus, and I do not know why it should be." She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I promise that if this is a wild and futile chase I will return to you, my dear Nicolas, for surely no woman has ever been so fortunate in love as she is unlucky."

"Let the children stay with me," he said. "You will return to me, I know it."

"If I am not back by midsummer, or you have no word of me, you must send them all home, Nicolas. Padraic must be on his lands, and Murrough and Robin have their places at court. Then, too, you must choose another wife."

"No!" His handsome face was anguished. "No," he repeated softly.

"Yes," came the voice of Edmond de Beaumont, and the dwarf hopped down from the large chair where he had been sitting quite hidden. He had heard all, and now he spoke urgently to his uncle. "Have you forgotten why you were made Fabron de Beaumont's heir, Nicolas? Of all the eligible men in this family only you are whole, normal, able to father the next generation. For that, my Uncle, you will need a wife."

"I have Skye," came the stubborn reply.

"No longer, I think," Edmond de Beaumont said sadly. "It pains me also, Nicolas. Never in my lifetime has this castle been as happy as it has been since she came into it bringing her laughter and joy for life and love. We should, however, do Skye's memory a great disservice if we allow ourselves to fall back into the old and gloomy ways." His violet eyes brimmed with sympathy for his uncle. Of them all, he understood her loss best, for Edmond de Beaumont loved Skye, too. Looking at her now, he said, "Must you go, chérie?"

"Yes, Edmond, I must go. If Osman says that Niall is alive, then Niall is alive. How, or where, or why I do not know, and I will not know until I see Osman."

He nodded. “Then you must go, and you will go with our prayers."

The children," Skye said, "I must tell the children." Without a further glance at either of them she turned and hurried from the hall.

They stood watching her go, each man lost in his own thoughts. Robbie wondered if what she was about to do was foolhardy. How could Niall be alive? And if he was, how in Hell did Osman know about it? Still, and here he grimaced, he remembered Osman. He was an honorable man, and had been a true friend to Khalid el Bey.

Seeing Skye go from the hall, Nicolas thought his heart would surely break. How could he lose her now, just before their wedding? Surely this was not happening! It was a bad dream from which he would shortly awaken. A sound, something like a sob, escaped his lips. It was no dream. It was a real and waking nightmare. He was about to lose to a dead man the only woman he had ever loved.

In his agile mind Edmond de Beaumont cursed the twist of fate that had wrought this terrible situation. His uncle was shattered, grief-stricken at the loss of Skye. It was going to be difficult, if not impossible, to find a bride who would suit Nicolas St. Adrian now; but a bride would have to be found quickly else the menace of France arise again. The knowledge of Skye's affair with Nicolas prior to their marriage had kept the French at bay, for Skye might have been with child, a child who would have been the next heir to Beaumont de Jaspre. Now, however, Skye would be gone, and without a wife Nicolas would be prime target for a French assassination. If he were to die then Beaumont de Jaspre would fall like a ripe fruit into the lap of Queen Catherine.

While the men behind her thought their thoughts Skye practically ran from the hall to find her children. By chance they were all gathered in the garden, and the older three, instantly seeing her distraught look, hurried toward her. Skye collapsed upon a marble bench, her white skin unusually pale. Reaching his mother first, Murrough sat next to her, putting an arm about her.

"What is it, Mother?" he begged her, and then Robin and Willow were squeezing in on the other side of her.

"Do you remember my speaking of my old friend, Osman the astrologer, in Algiers?" They all nodded, and Skye continued. "I have had a message from Osman, a strange and frightening, yet wonderful message. Osman begs me to come to Algiers, for he says that Niall is alive!"

"It is possible," Murrough said thoughtfully, "although the odds are quite incredible, Mother."

She was stunned by his words. "How is it possible, Murrough?" He was the first person who had not said she was mad to go, and she wondered why.

"Remember the mad nun's words, Mother. She left Niall's body upon the beach for the sea to claim. Later, when the others went back to the beach, the tide had already come in, and they assumed the sea had taken Niall's lifeless body. We know that she stabbed him, but was he really dead? Did his lifeless body indeed wash out to sea? Mannanan MacLir usually returns the dead shells of those whose souls he has taken. Niall's body was never found, Mother. Therefore it is possible that he was not dead, but badly injured; and it is equally possible that he is alive today, and your friend, Osman, knows his whereabouts," Murrough concluded triumphantly.

"God's bones!" Skye said, totally surprised by her son's reasoning. "You are a scholar, Murrough! You have a mind that reasons!" For a moment she forgot her own problems. "Is that what you want, my son? To be a scholar?"

"I do for now," he said with a smile, thinking that he was only applying common sense to the situation and that this was a strange time for them to be having this little talk; but then if his mother was rushing off to Algiers to find Niall Burke, Heaven only knew when he would see her again.

"Where would you study?" she demanded of him.

"Merton College at Oxford," he answered her prompdy.

"Your father studied in Paris," she said in one of her few references to Dom O’Flaherty, "for all the good it did him." Then she smiled at him. "When I return from Algiers I will see to it that you go to Oxford, Murrough. Of course it will mean that you and Joan must wait to wed. Will you mind that?"

"Arrange it now," he said quietly. "You do not know how long it will take you to find Niall, and I cannot bear another year playing the popinjay of a page in the Earl of Lincoln's household. For Robin the court is a joy, as he is, for all his age, one of England's premier noblemen. I, however, am a different matter, Mother. Both of my parents are Irish, and there are some English who cannot abide anyone Irish."